Australia should seize the opportunity to develop a free trade agreement
with the United States, Singapore, Chile and New Zealand, Shadow Trade
Minister Senator Peter Cook said today.

"A number of factors make this timely," said Senator Cook.
" They include:

the breakdown of World Trade Organisation talks in Seattle;

the need to better enmesh ourselves into Asia, following the problems
caused by the Prime Minister's ham-fisted suggestion that we might play
'deputy sheriff' in the region; and

the fact that P5 is a sufficiently compact proposal for the United
States to engage with during the early part of a Presidential election
year.

"P5 will
not clash with our attempts to start a new round of WTO talks, or efforts
to link AFTA and CER. Instead, it will complement them, as yet another
effective way of removing trade barriers and opening markets.

"Australia
should offer to host a meeting of P5 Trade Ministers in January or February
2000. Until now, we have been leaving it to New Zealand to make the
running, while we drag along in their wake.

"A web of
free trade agreements is developing in the Asia-Pacific - including
Chile-Mexico-Canada, New Zealand-Singapore, Japan-South Korea, Japan-Mexico,
Japan-Canada, Singapore-Mexico and Korea-Chile. Now is an opportune
time to create our own.

"Prominent
US economist Dr C Fred Bergsten has called P5 'the most promising way
to proceed for the foreseeable future'. Australia should do all we can
to make it a reality."